Near To You
by lanna-misssunshine
Summary: Here she was laying her heart and her memories out on the table for the last person she would have ever imaged being here with, just wanting him to understand. Dramione one-shot.


_A/N -__** READ THIS AUTHORS NOTE!!!! **_

_Okay, this is a Dramione one shot and it's the first time I've ever written any Harry Potter fanfics (not that I haven't had any ideas for them, I just never choose to write them). This may not make sense, so I'll explain it in the bottom authors note (if you read it and get what's going on then you don't have to read the explanation of course, unless you want to)._

_(haha yes, this authors note was pretty much just to tell you to read the bottom authors note, I'm an idiot)_

_-Lanna_

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**Near To You.**

As the memories stopped and they were pulled out of the penseive, silence surrounded the pair. Hermione watched as a whirlwind of unreadable emotions flitted across his face before his expression settled on his uncaring mask, his eyes the only thing betraying his façade.

"Why did you show me this?" He asked, raising his head to meet her patient gaze.

"I could show you better than I could tell you," She stated simply. "I needed you to understand."

He nodded his head slowly, absorbing her words and for the slightest second his mask seemed to break, showing pain and sadness and acceptance, but only for a moment before he pulled it all back in again and locked it away to feel later when he was alone --his strength was one of the things that drew her to him, the way he kept on fighting, the way he could make people believe he was happy even if he felt as if he were dying inside... she could relate to that, she respected that.

"I think I do understand now," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This is why you kept pushing me away? You can't give your heart to me because it already belongs to someone else…"

It wasn't a question - she could see he had reached his conclusion and after what she had shown him she couldn't blame him. It was true that she had given her heart away a long time ago --a secret no one but the Weasley twins knew, not even Harry or Ron-- and she had kept the memories locked up tight in her mind, too afraid to let go.

She had met him the summer when she was 16, a friend of Victors who had visited at the same time she had and at first he seemed to hate her, she couldn't for life of her figure out why until he called her a mudblood -- then it made sense to her, but she had been wrong, a rare occurrence for Hermione Granger. She had confronted him, that pureblood, arrogant, asshole and he had surprised her not by hexing her or insulting her again, but by kissing her. And boy was it a kiss, it left her gasping and weak at the knees but he had caught her, pushing her up against the wall and holding her to him as if any moment she might disappear.

She didn't want to believe him when he told her he had only said all those cruel and heartless things to her to protect her from his family -- he had said if they knew he had feelings for a muggleborn they would hurt her. She didn't want to believe him, but she did, the sincerity in his eyes and his kiss made it impossible not to.

And so it began, a year of secret letters, meetings and stolen kisses -- he had taught her so much and when he got the dark mark she understood he didn't have a choice, she saw that things weren't always as black and white as they seemed and she knew he was good and wouldn't kill anybody, she trusted him.

When he had asked her to leave with him, for them to run away from the wizarding world, she had considered it for the briefest of moments and she could see it… the two of them, together, happy with no war or Voldermort or prejudices of his family, but that moment had passed quickly and she declined, as he knew she would - his brave witch, a Gryffindor through and through.

He knew that she would stay by her best friends side and fight -- not only because he needed her, but because it was what was right.

"Some things are worth dying for." She had told him.

They agreed that when Harry defeated Voldermort --for neither doubted which side would win-- that they would be together, and when he asked her to marry him she had accepted without a moments hesitation because although they were young, she knew that their love was real. More real than anything she had ever known.

Neither of the young lovers realised how limited their time together was, before they knew it the war had reached it's climax at the battle at Hogwarts and when the death eaters had breached the castle she knew he was there and prayed to whatever God may be out there that he was safe, knowing he was on the side of good disguised in the uniform of the dark side -- a target for either.

Hermione couldn't contain her relief as she turned a corner to find him walking down the deserted corridor towards her and had ran to him and kissed him -- forgetting all the fighting that was going on around them, completely wrapped up in each other. Her mind barely registered the outraged cry from the female death eater who had stumbled across the couple in her search for another fight.

She barely noticed the flash of red as it headed straight for her heart, and she barely noticed her world crash down around her when he had thrown himself in front of her, shielding her from the deadly curse.

Nothing else existed for Hermione in that moment, as she looked down at him, blood stained on his chest from whatever curse he had been hit with, she had never felt such rage or pain or hate in her entire life and it consumed her as she turned with a single minded goal to the smirking witch behind her -- revenge. Justice.

For the first time in Hermione Grangers life, she had killed someone and she felt no remorse or guilt and much to her despair, it didn't lessen her pain either as she fell to her knees and clutched his dying body to her tightly, eyes blurred with tears as she begged him to stay with her and told him she loved him.

His last words were said with a weak nostalgic smile, "Some things _are_ worth dying for."

She didn't know how long she had sat there numb and broken before Fred and George found her. They never asked her why she was clutching the body of a death eater or why she was mumbling that she loved him over and over like a broken record, they knew enough just by seeing to guess roughly what had happened.

She had dried her tears and gone with them and they had fought, and fought until they had won, Harry defeating the dark lord once and for all and the light had celebrated and praised and thanked the Golden Trio for what they had done for the wizarding world, but no one could see beyond her fake smile to notice what she had gone through… what she had lost, and she never spoke of it, she never told anyone anything except that the death eater had saved her life -- she couldn't allow him to be remembered as a bad person, not when she knew the truth, so she had cleared his name and made sure people knew he was good.

After a while she gave in to Ron's advances, secretly relieved that her heart didn't skip a beat when she saw him and that he never gave her butterflies or made her weak at the knees… it was easier that way, she wasn't ready to give someone her heart again, not yet. But still it had hurt when she found him cheating on her with his ex girlfriend Lavender Brown, not because she had lost a lover but because she had been betrayed by her best friend and that had left a mark on her already bruised heart.

Now at the age of 22, a year after her relationship with Ron had crumbled, working at Hogwarts as Transfiguration professor she found herself at a crossroads in her life, a pivotal moment that terrified her more than she had been during the war, for it wasn't her life that was at stake the time, but her heart and here she was laying her heart and her memories out on the table for the last person she would have ever imaged being here with, ready to move on, just wanting him to understand.

"You're wrong." She said and the mans head snapped up his eyes reflecting his confusion.

"I gave him my heart and I would have given him my life… he was my first in a lot of things and when things ended with us it wasn't because I stopped loving him, but because he stopped breathing. But you're wrong about me not being able to love anyone else, I can love someone -- I can love them completely, like I did with him as long as that someone understands that there will always be a part of my heart that will belong to him, as long as that someone knows that they don't have to be jealous of my past or compete with memories." She took a shaky breath as she finished talking, looking to the blonde man in front her with a question in her eyes.

_Can you understand? _They said and relief washed through her body as she saw the smile break across his face, pushing away any pain or sadness that had been lurking under the surface before and being replaced by hope and happiness.

He took two steps forward till he was standing in front of her, eyes burning into hers as his hand cupped her face.

"I love you Hermione," He murmured, leaning his head down so their foreheads were touching and his nose was brushing against hers.

She smiled at him timidly and before she tilted her head so her lips brushed against his she whispered, "I love you too Draco."

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_A/N - Okay, to explain this… basically I always get ideas for Dramione stories and this one was stuck in my head tonight but I didn't want to write out the full story, so instead I decided to make it into a one shot just to get it out of my system._

_To sum up, one summer when Hermione went to visit Victor Krum, she met one of his friends who also happened to be staying for the summer… he was a pureblood and his family were followers of Voldermort, he was attracted to Hermione but he knew it was against the rules so he would insult her and call her mud blood so no one would suspect his feelings for her._

_Then she snapped one day when they were alone, and confronted him about it and he kissed her and explained the truth to her. They kept their relationship secret because it was safer and she never told Harry or Ron because she was scared they wouldn't understand and because she figured they had enough to worry about. Their relationship lasted about a year and ended at the battle at Hogwarts when he died to save her. (one thing I regret about not making this an actual story is that I don't get to include all the cute scenes between them, I really liked his character)  
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_The whole Fred and George finding her thing, well… that may seem a bit random but that's because if I had written this into a full story Hermione would've become pretty good friends with the twins because they were there for her after he had died (I chose them because they don't seem like the type to give looks of pity, but more like the types that would make her laugh and smile to help her forget her pain for a little while)._

_She had a relationship with Ron, and he cheated on her… their friendship would get back on track eventually, but it would take her some time to forgive the fact that he hurt her like that._

_She was shocked to find Draco had become potions professor, and even more shocked that he didn't seem like a total ass like he was in school… she was physically attracted to him to begin with, and then it became more because she saw he had changed a lot and she remembered how wrong she had been about her first love, when they first met he had acted just like Draco did towards her in school (I just realised I never named him? Hmm.) and she decided to forgive Draco for the things he said and did because she could see he wasn't the same as he was in school (and actually, his reasons for treating her the way he did were similar to the reasons the other guy had - because he knew he wasn't allowed to like her but he did)._

_The story above was basically, before they started a proper relationship she wanted him to understand everything, so she showed him her memories of everything that had happened (well not EVERYTHING, obviously she kept some memories private, but she showed him enough for him to get what happened). I think the rest is pretty clear._

_Oh and the title is because this reminded me of the song "Near To You" by A Fine Frenzy, which I realised after I had written it. _

_Annnd, I kind of didn't reread this or anything after writing it, I just quickly wrote it in 5 minutes and now I'm posting it, so if there are mistakes or things… then woops._

_Review? Even if it's to tell me how much it sucks and that I should never attempt to write Harry Potter fanfics ever again. _

_Wow this is a bitch of an authors note, I think it's longer than the story - last thing I swear, I have a Dramione banner I made on my profile with who I picture as older Draco and Hermione.  
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_-Lanna_


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